August, 2019, Part 1, By The Numbers: The Financial Abyss That is California

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. We will do a few “by the numbers” posts this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us. 

1) We recently and often discussed the fact that the financial situation in California is not too bright. In fact, we have placed them in the group of states that are most likely to go bankrupt first, along with Illinois and New Jersey. While we think Illinois will go belly up first, a recent article on the Real Politics website by Victor Davis Hanson shows how bad the numbers, and risk, for the state of California really are:

• The 40 million state residents depend on only 1% of the state’s taxpayers to pay nearly half of the total state income tax stream.
• California has the highest marginal top tax rate in the country at 13.3%.
• If only 10% of these high earning state residents left the state because of the high tax burden, the state income tax revenue stream would drop a whopping 5% or so, if only 20% left the revenue stream would drop 10% or so.
• I could not find out how many taxpayers there are in California but I do know there are about 13 million households so let’s use that as a surrogate.
• 1% of 13 million households is 130,000 households which we will assume approximates the number of taxpayers paying 50% of the state’s income taxes. 
• Thus, if only 13,000 (10%) of those wealthy households leave the state, the state income tax revenue stream goes down 5%.
• Given the Trump tax cuts which maxes out certain Federal income tax deductions to $10,000, there is more and more advantages for the wealthy to leave the California because much of their high property taxes, high state income taxes, and high mortgage payments will no longer be deductible on their Federal income taxes.
• But the numbers are not just bad financially, consider this quality of life issue: “During the 2011-16 California drought, politicians and experts claimed that global warming had permanently altered the climate, and that snow and rain would become increasingly rare in California. As a result, long-planned low-elevation reservoirs, designed to store water during exceptionally wet years, were considered all but useless and thus were never built.”
• But as we have discussed, most climate forecasts are bogus and in 2016 and 2017 the state received record levels of rain and snow.
• But the state had no place to put the extra moisture and future water supply and thus, trillions and trillions of gallons of water washed out to the ocean, never to be stored or used again.
• This past February alone it is estimated that 18 trillion gallons of rain was not saved.
• Rather than build the needed reservoirs, the state’s politicians wasted $5 billion on a high speed rail line that will never exist since its cost escalated from $44 billion to projected $77 trillion before any track had been laid.
• 27% of the state’s residents were not born in this country as the state’s politicians welcome illegal immigrants into the state which has strained the budget and other services with a full one third of the Medicaid births in California being to illegal immigrants, putting additional financial strain on the state’s finances.
• One third of the country’s welfare recipients live in California and one in five state residents live below the poverty line.

Poverty, water shortage, wasteful spending, high taxes, a delicate and risky tax model, the numbers show that California is still a very likely candidate for government failure in the not too distant future.

2) A great site for numbers relative to the states is www.statedatalab.org. What it has to say after analyzing the California numbers is also not pretty [note: all numbers from the database are from fiscal year 2017, the most recent year that total results are available]:

• Every man, woman, and child in California, all 40 million of them, would have to send the state government a check for $22,000 in order to get the state out of its debt hole.
• Thus, a California of four would have to write a check for $88,000 to dig out of the hole.
• California has $100.1 billion in assets to pay its $369.9 billion in current and future bills.
• Thus, it has a financial shortfall of about $269.9 billion, a little over a quarter of a TRILLION dollars, giving it the designation as a “sinkhole state.”
• Due to accounting tricks, this $269.9 billion does not include another hidden $63.8 billion in pension and retiree healthcare liabilities.
• But the problem for California residents does not stop at the state government level.
• If you live in Los Angeles you would have to pay another $6,000, on top of the $22,000, to get the city out of its financial debt hole, bringing each resident’s debt burden in that city up to $28,000 to cover the overspending and wasteful spending of California’s state and local LA politicians.
• LA only has $12.7 billion in assets to cover its $20.4 billion in current and future liabilities.
• But this is pennies compared to San Francisco which has so much debt that its citizens would have to pony up a whopping $22,600 each to get that city out of its financial hole, meaning that each resident of San Francisco would have to put forth almost $50,000 each to bail out the state and local politicians’ financial mismanagement.

It is a great website if you love numbers, it is a scary website if you believe what the political class in California has done to the financial future of the state and local government finances, a reckoning that will have devastating impacts on the citizens of California. The numbers do not lie.

3) Let’s stay with the same database, numbers, and analyses and see what it has to say about our other two favored states to go bankrupt, Illinois and New Jersey:

• The state of Illinois is over $225 billion short when it comes to assets available to pay bills and costs likely to occur.
• This means that each man, woman,and child of the state of Illinois would have to pay a whopping $50,800 EACH to get the state out of its financial hole.
• This $225 billion shortfall does not include another $36 billion of liabilities in retiree health care costs that accounting tricks allow the state to hide.
• And the city of Chicago is also in bad financial shape and each resident of Chicago would have to pay another $38,100 to get the city out of its financial hole which means every man, woman, and child in Chicago would have to pay $88,900 to fix the financial mess that Illinois state and Chicago city politicians have created.
• But hold on, New Jersey is coming on strong since every man, woman, and child in that state would have to pay $61,400 each to get the state out of its financial debt hole, almost three times what a California resident would have to pay.
• This debt burden is almost 70% higher than it was just four years previous when the debt level per person was about $36,000 each, indicating that New Jersey politicians have been spending and incurring debt like drunken sailors over the past four years.

Wow, Illinois, New Jersey, California, it is a toss up what state will go bankrupt first and given these debt levels and debt burdens, they will go bankrupt, the numbers do not lie. 

To show you how bad the politicians mismanaged the financials in these states, let’s look at a few other random states debt burden to show that these three are likely the worst run operates of all fifty states:

• Florida individual debt burden: $1,800 per person.
• Georgia individual debt burden: $3,400 per person.
• Kansas individual debt burden: $7,600 per person.
• Iowa individual debt burden: $500 per person SURPLUS, i.e. the state of Iowa has enough money to cover its debt and give every citizen a $500 check.
• Montana individual debt burden: $3,300.

You get the idea, some state politicians know how to operate and budget much more efficiently and effectively than New Jersey, Illinois and California.

So given these numbers which state will go bankrupt first...or is there a dark horse candidate or two out there that might make it to the bankruptcy finish line ahead of these three lame financial horses?

More numbers to follow, including the abyss that is Baltimore and the missing hundreds of millions in New York City.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

July, 2019, Part 4, Political CLass Insanity: A Criminal Government Employee From The Obama Administration, A Potential Criminal Washington D.C.Councilman, and a Delusional Kamala Harris

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) The corruption and criminality of the political class never seems to end as we see from the following situation involving a formal Obama official:

• Haroon K. Ullah was a senior employee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
• He was the chief strategic officer for the organization that is responsible for communicating America’s ideals and viewpoints around the world through such outlets as Voice Of America.
• He has admitted that he illegally stole $40,000 in taxpayer government funds by lying about hotel invoices, fake taxi rides, and billing the Federal government for personal travel expenses.
• According to a Justice Department statement: “Additionally, Ullah admitted that he created a falsified letter from a real medical doctor purportedly claiming that Ullah needed to fly in business class at government expense because of a sore knee. By submitting the forged letter from the doctor, Ullah fraudulently obtained costly business class upgrades at government expense, including on lengthy international flights. Ullah admitted to creating many of the false documents on his government-issued laptop computer.” 

He faces up to ten years in jail when sentenced in October. The good news is this government employee got caught abusing taxpayer funds. The bad news is that we have no idea how many other government employees do this and get away with this abuse every day.

2) Ullah was a Washington government employee who rightly got busted for criminal acts. Continuing this line of discussion, the Washington Post recently reported that an elected Washington D.C. official may have also broke some laws along the way:

• The FBI recently raided the home of D.C. Councilman Jack Evans.
• The possible law breaking involves a recent memo that alleges that Evans “repeatedly and proactively” used his Council position to help out a company that was paying him $50,000 a year for that help.
• The memo is a 20 page document that was put together at the request of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board to look into conflicts of interest.
• The document concluded that: “Our investigation uncovered a pattern of conduct in which Evans attempted to and did help his friends and clients and served their interests, rather than the interest of [the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit]. The evidence uncovered through our investigation demonstrates that Evans’s ethical violations occurred not by accident, but ‘knowingly.’” 
• The company was doing over $300,000 a year in contracts with the city and allegedly kicking back a good chunk of that contract money to Evans.
• As always, Evans is assumed innocent until proven guilty and no charges as of yet have been filed for this alleged behavior. 
• But Council Chairman Phil Mendelson was not happy, having told the Washington Post: “It is imperative that public officials maintain high ethical standards. Public trust is critical. At the same time, it is delicate and precious. We must now work to regain it.”

A few posts ago we discussed the outrage of a sitting Congresswoman, Frederica Wilson, had because people were making fun of politicians and she thought that was outrageous and that anyone who made fun of a politician needed to be made a criminal. Well, Congresswoman, until elected officials, like possibly Evans, and government employees, like Ullah, stop abusing the law, their government positions, and taxpayer money, you and others like you have not earned our respect so please shut up until the integrity of your peers and the government employees you oversee is worthy of our respect.

3) Since Trump became President:

• The national unemployment has dropped below 4% and has stayed there for many, many months.
• African American unemployment levels are at or near all time lows.
• Hispanic unemployment levels are at or near all time lows.
• Women unemployment levels are at or near all time lows.
• Many companies have relocated or opened new factories and facilities within the country as a result of the Trump tax cuts.
• Wages are rising, something that rarely happened until Obama’s tenure.
• Overall economic growth continues to ride at levels higher during the entire Obama Presidency.
• Inflation continues to run at very low levels.
• Gas prices have been stable and low since Trump took office.
• Growth in manufacturing jobs has been booming, something that Obama said would never happen.
• Businesses took the Trump tax cut savings and reinvested those tax savings in higher wages, higher levels of employee training, employee bonus payments, and higher donations to charities.
• Trump’s tax cuts resulting in dozens and dozens of utilities passing those tax savings along to utility companies in the form of lower rates.
• Possibly because they were able to keep more of their hard earned wages, Americans set a record for charitable giving the year after the Trump tax cuts took effect, donating over $400 billion to charitable causes.

So let’s review: low unemployment rates across the board, rising wages, low inflation, low gas prices, high overall economic growth, lower utility rates, life is pretty good for most Americans.

Unless you are a Democrat running for President. According to Kamala Harris, the Trump economic policies are “not working for working people.” What? Total nonsense. Higher wages, more and better jobs, low inflation, low gas prices, are you kidding me Kamala? What else could one possibly want from an economy? Plus, you were awfully quiet when the Obama economy had stagnant wages, low paying job creation, higher gas prices, higher taxes, higher taxes for most Americans. My gosh, you cannot make up this insanity.

Of course, Harris is running for President so she has to suspend reality to get some traction in light of the best economy in decades. She went onto say she would repeal the Trump tax cuts which means that the vast majority of people in this country would be paying more, not less in taxes, and somehow in her perverted logic that would be better for working people: “One day one I will repeal that tax bill, which benefits the one percent and the biggest corporations.” 

No, Ms. Harris the tax cuts benefited the vast majority of middle class and lower middle class Americans in this country. In fact, the wealthier in this country often paid MORE after the tax cuts since Trump put a cap on the tax deductions the wealthy could take for state taxes and interest payments. 

Using realty and real data, the Tax Policy Center found that 1) 81% of the middle fifth of income earners paid less Federal tax in 2018, 2) 66% of all Americans paid less tax, and 3) only 5.5% of U.S. households paid more than $100 more in taxes in 2018 and most of those paying higher taxes were in the upper income tax brackets.

As with most politicians, it is often impossible to determine if politicians are really that stupid and do not understand basic realities or they think we are that stupid that we believe everything they say, or lie about, despite reality. Ms. Harris is obviously no exception to this rule, given her gross misstatement about the Trump economy.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Kamala Harris spewing falsehoods or delusions about the state of the economy, a potentially criminal politician in D.C. and a real, admitted criminal from the Obama administration. More insanity to follow including more From Kamala Harris and her inability to understand dates.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2018, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Pelosi Still Living In A Different Reality and FEMA and DHS Incompetence Shining Through Again

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) We have not reported on a good old fashioned government wasteful spending project so let’s review a doozy today. The Freedom Outpost website reported a recent FEMA screw up as reported by the New York Times:

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contracted with a company owned by Dr. Tiffany Brown to provide 30 million meals to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
• The cost to taxpayers was $156 million.
• Unfortunately, Brown’s company, Tribute Contracting LLC, ended up delivering only 50,000 meals.
• By the way, Brown was the only employee of her company that had just received a $156 million government contract.
• Brown also runs three other companies including Tiffany Brown Designs (women’s clothing line), Tiffany Brown Holdings Inc. (a consulting firm that has five divisions: entertainment, vending, radio, food, nonprofit management and book publishing, and Luxe Fuel (a beverage delivery software app), leading one to believe that she may have not been the best, most experienced business person to deliver life saving meals to Puerto Rico.
• Not only did Brown have no experience in large scale disaster food relief but she had at least five canceled Federal government contracts in her past.
• She ended up hiring an Atlanta wedding caterer which had a staff of only 11 people in order to deliver the millions of meals she had been contracted to provide.
• By the time that 18.5 million meals were due for delivery Brown had only delivered 50,000, at which point her contract was terminated.
• To add to the insanity of the situation, Brown is now suing FEMA and the American taxpayer for $70 million for breach of contract.
• The New York Times summarized some of her past shenanigans: “The government has also canceled Tribute contracts on at least five occasions. Four cancellations involved the Federal Prison System, which found that Tribute failed to deliver meat, bakery, cereal and other food products to various correctional institutions. A fifth termination involved the Government Publishing Office, which terminated a contract for 3,000 tote bags after Tribute failed to print the Marine Corps logo on both sides of the bags. An investigation by the office’s inspector general found that Tribute “altered and submitted a false shipping document and subcontracted the predominant production function on two contracts without proper authorization,” according to a 2015 report submitted to Congress.”

And despite this pathetic history of wasting taxpayer money, FEMA STILL went ahead and granted her another big contract that, surprise, surprise, was another failure.

2) But as we all already know, FEMA is not the only inept Federal organization:

• According to Mark Swanson, writing for the NewsMax website on February 5, 2018, somehow a set of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) anti-terrorism documents were found by a CNN employee in a seat back pocket on a commercial airline flight.
• The documents were marked "for official use only" and "important for national security." 
• They contained strategies for after action government responses to a simulated biological attack.
• The documents apparently belonged to DHS microbiologist Michael Walter since his boarding pass and travel itinerary were attached to the secret government documents.
• A former DHS official, Juliette Kayyem, who is now employed by CNN, stated the obvious, that leaving the documents behind on a plane was a "really stupid thing:" "Who knows who else could have picked this up. The biggest consequence of this mistake may have less to do with terrorists knowing our vulnerabilities and more to do with confidence in the Department of Homeland Security. In the end, confidence in the federal government at a time of crisis is what the American public deserves."
• CNN reported that the documents showed shortcomings in local state, and Federal agencies responses to a potential attack in Minneapolis, the recent site of the Super Bowl.

So FEMA is stupid and wasteful when it comes to resolving a problem and DHS cannot keep secrets secret. Insanity.

3) We have discussed the many real benefits that the Trump tax cut has had on millions and millions of Americans:

• Hundreds, if not thousands, of American companies have given millions of Americans bonus checks of upwards of $3,000 as a result of the tax cut.
• Many companies have raised the minimum wage they pay their workers (e.g. Walmart, CVS, etc.) as a result of the tax cut.
• Over a hundred million taxpayers will see a reduction in their 2018 tax bills as a result of the tax cut.
• Companies have promised to increase their domestic spending on capital improvements, employee training, and donations to charities as a result of the tax cut.

Some of these benefits can be viewed in more detail by accessing the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

Americans get to keep more of their hard earned money, great! Employees are getting higher wages, bonuses and more job training, great! Companies are bringing up home overseas earnings to invest in the domestic economy, great! Charities are seeing greater contributions from companies, great! 

Well not so great if you are Nancy Pelosi. According to a recent article by Caleeb Hull, writing for the Independent Journal Review on February 1, 2018, Pelosi characterized these benefits to the American worker and American economy as “crumbs”: “In terms of the bonus that corporate America receives versus the crumbs they are giving to workers to put the schmooze on is so pathetic.”

So, employees getting $1,00, $2,000, or possibly up to $3,000 in bonuses is crumbs? Families getting a doubling of the child care credit is crumbs? Employees saving on their taxes on every paycheck for at least eight years is crumbs? 

This idiotic response to the tax cuts raises two questions Ms. Pelosi:

1. Isn’t giving Americans “crumbs,” crumbs that were basically theirs to begin with before the government confiscated their “crumbs” via high taxes, better than nothing, which was the position of you and every other Democrat who voted against giving American back some of their hard earned wealth or crumbs?
2. Second, how is a tax cut and thousand dollar bonuses crumbs when back in 2012 you hailed the $40 tax cut you engineered several years ago as the best thing in the world: “160 million Americans will continue to receive their payroll tax cut — nearly $40 per paycheck in the pockets of the average family. I salute the work of the unified House Democratic caucus on behalf of the American people.” 

So the Trump tax cuts and the reduction in taxes every paycheck AND millions of Americans getting thousands dollar bonuses is crumbs but in your world $40 is worth saluting? I still wonder what the color of the sky is in Pelosi’s world because she is certainly not living in this world.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Pelosi is still living in another reality, FEMA is still inept when it comes to managing taxpayer wealth, and the DHS cannot keep a secret. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w